Father's Day Countdown

Grills, ties, and tools — the third Sunday in June.

How many days until Father's Day?

Live countdown to Father's Day 2027

About Father's Day

Father’s Day celebrates fathers and father figures. Anchored to the third Sunday of June in many countries, its date moves every year.

The story behind Father's Day

Father's Day was inspired by a sermon on Mother's Day. Sonora Smart Dodd of Spokane, Washington, listened in 1909 and thought fathers deserved the same — her own father, a Civil War veteran, had raised six children alone after her mother died in childbirth. The first Father's Day in Spokane was celebrated on June 19, 1910.

It took 62 years to become official. Presidents Calvin Coolidge and Lyndon Johnson endorsed versions of the day; finally in 1972, Richard Nixon signed it into law — making Father's Day the holiday with the longest gap between invention and national recognition.

The first known Father's Day celebration actually came from West Virginia in 1908 — a one-off church service honoring 361 men killed in the Fairmont coal mine explosion the previous December. It never became an annual tradition there; the Spokane version stuck.

Father's Day dates 2027–2030

Father's Day facts

• Father's Day falls on the third Sunday of June in the US and the UK.
• The first US Father's Day was celebrated in Spokane, Washington in 1910.
• It is the third-biggest card-sending occasion after Christmas and Valentine's Day.
• The rose is the official flower: red for a living father, white for one who has passed.